


as in olden days (happy golden days)

by RoamingSignals



Series: Make the Yuletide Gay [1]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Break Up, Christmas, Coffee Shops, Established Relationship, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-10
Updated: 2019-12-10
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:21:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21746674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoamingSignals/pseuds/RoamingSignals
Summary: Ten is always so good at knowing what Taeyong wants.Perhaps that's why Taeyong knows exactly how this conversation is going to go, and why Ten's face is closed off, and Ten's own coffee is barely touched. Because Ten knows what Taeyong wants, and Taeyong wants something that's going to hurt the both of them.
Relationships: Lee Taeyong/Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul | Ten
Series: Make the Yuletide Gay [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1567384
Comments: 15
Kudos: 92





	as in olden days (happy golden days)

**Author's Note:**

> ALRIGHT SO this is sad. i'm sorry.
> 
> my original plan for christmas was to write 12 fics with different ships, all members accounted for, but I just ran out of time. this fic is a lot sadder without the other fics around it, but. ah. sorry :(
> 
> I did finish three others though! so there's that anyway MERRY CHRISTMAS don't be mad at me

This has been a long time coming, Taeyong thinks, making his way through the city. It's sad that it has to happen to close to Christmas. In a way, it's already happened. He holds his package close to his chest and holds his scarf up over his mouth and nose. It's so cold these days. The air smells like pollution and pine.

He pushes his way into the café with a deep breath. Pollution, pine, and peppermint. Something warmer, too, the sweet smell of tea and chocolate buried under the coffee. The glass of the window pane is fogged over, but the inside is warm. Taeyong hasn't been here since the holiday season started, but he enjoyed coming here before life got crazy and he forgot how to be a human. The entire menu has changed since then. The baked goods are different.

Taeyong wonders whether he should order something. He wanders up to the counter, stares in the case to see if there's something he might like. The pastries here are delicious, always, no matter the season, but he's not sure if he should eat anything before this conversation. Is he sick over it? He's not sure.

The package in his arms is nearly crushed, but he doesn't think the recipient is going to care much about his wrapping job.

He looks up, and the barista is watching him closely. "No rush," the man says. There's no one else in line at the moment. Everyone has places to be, Taeyong supposes. "Take your time."

"What do you recommend?" Taeyong asks. He's seen this man before, but they don't really wear name tags here, and he's always been too shy to ask.

"For coffee?"

Taeyong wrinkles his nose.

The barista laughs. "Okay. Not coffee."

"Something sweet," Taeyong says, and he swallows. He's jittery. His feet won't stop moving. "I think I'm going to need it."

The man opens his mouth, but Taeyong hears his name over the din of the café, and his head snaps to the left.

Ten is waving to him from the side. There's an extra mug sitting on the table, piping hot. Ten's expression is not as open as it normally is. Taeyong smiles at him.

"Sorry," he tells the barista. "Looks like I'm covered."

"No problem," the guy nods, and then Taeyong takes the long journey over the Ten's table. Each step is so heavy.

Ten also looks heavy. The atmosphere of the café is warm, and bright, and bustling. There's holiday wreaths everywhere, gold bows and green garland and red poinsettia, and it feels like Christmas and cinnamon. Rounded edges, sweet music.

Taeyong takes a seat and feels like he's burning. "Ten," he says, a little breathless. His nose is red. He wrestles his gloves off, setting the package to side. He sniffles, and holds the cup in front of him with both hands. "Hot chocolate?"

"I know you," Ten coos. "Of course it's hot chocolate."

Very sweet, just what Taeyong wanted. Ten is always so good at knowing what Taeyong wants.

Perhaps that's why Taeyong knows exactly how this conversation is going to go, and why Ten's face is closed off, and Ten's own coffee is barely touched. Because Ten knows what Taeyong wants, and Taeyong wants something that's going to hurt the both of them.

"I missed you," Taeyong says, gentle. He kicks Ten gently in the shin.

"I missed you, too, baby," Ten says. He huffs. "Holiday season is always crazy. All of the shows are wrapping up soon." He looks out the window. His profile is so sweet, even if the turn of his mouth is a bit bitter. "I can't believe it's almost Christmas."

It's quiet for a moment, and Taeyong hums. "It's been really busy," he agrees. His feet tap on the floor. He wonders if Ten feels the table shaking. "How have you been?"

Ten swallows. Taeyong can hear it over everything. "I'm...good." He smiles, gentle. "I'm really good."

Why do they feel like strangers?

"We haven't seen each other in three weeks," Ten says quietly. "I don't...I don't know whose fault that is."

"Both, I think." Taeyong taps his nails on the ceramic of the coffee cup, uses the warmth of it to regain feeling in his fingertips. "It's both of our faults."

This is the moment that Taeyong has been waiting for, fretting over, avoiding terribly. Pacing his room and writing lyrics to try and force it out of his system, but the dark circles under Ten's eyes suggest that he also felt it coming. Such a strange feeling, for the holidays, but perhaps it's fitting.

The end of the year is approaching, and so is the end of them.

"I don't know if..." Ten stops himself, and Taeyong sees the way his nails dig into the wooden table. "Are we worth trying to keep?"

Taeyong is heart-broken. "That's a cruel question."

If their hearts were in it, Taeyong things they'd fight tooth and nail to keep things as they are. The fact that they've lasted so long, Taeyong thinks that's worth something. Two years is a long time.

Why have these last three weeks passed so quickly? Why do they feel like an eternity?

"Are you happy with me anymore?" Taeyong asks him.

Strangers, when last month they were lovers, and all the sweet months before. Taeyong kind of wants to vomit. Kind of wants to sleep through the winter, but it's too late to send himself to hibernation when the bloody end is right in front of him.

Their relationship, dead in the winter.

"I've been the happiest with you out of everyone," Ten says slowly, but his eyes are locked on his own hands. Taeyong understands the aversion to looking up, like maybe Ten will see something he doesn't need — pity, maybe. Or relief. Taeyong feels so many things, it's hard to know what's on his own face.

Ten's heart has always been on his sleeve, and Taeyong aches to see it splayed out there in the open, because it hurts them both.

"This really sucks." Ten groans, holds his head in his hands. "I thought...fuck. I really thought we were endgame."

Taeyong remembers the feeling of seeing Ten for the first time, up on stage, owning every inch of the room, moving Taeyong to tears and further. Taeyong thought Ten was endgame. Taeyong thought Ten was everything. He still thinks so much of him.

"I wish we were endgame," Taeyong replies, because it's the truth, and it hurts the least.

Ten's nose is also red, despite having been waiting in the heat for who knows how long. His eyes are shining. It sucks. It is the worst thing, that this had to happen at Christmas. "Why couldn't we be?"

"Maybe you were the happiest with me that you've ever been," Taeyong says, and he smiles, and Ten looks at him, because he knows Taeyong needs him to. "But you'll be happier somewhere else than you are now."

The horrible, beautiful truth.

Ten rolls his eyes, laughs a little, but it isn't bitter. Still sweet. Hurting. "It isn't...I wish I could be angry at either of us."

"You can hate me, if you want," Taeyong tells him. He thinks he'd be heartbroken, if Ten destroyed Taeyong in his memory, because Taeyong was the happiest with Ten, too. Everything between them has always been balanced; in love, certainly, and in the slow fall out of it. "I don't know if I could ever hate you."

With a sigh, Ten falls back in his seat, banging his head against the wall. "This ending is so anticlimactic."

"You'll feel it in the morning," Taeyong tells him. Ten has always needed a while to process things, but perhaps this was slow-moving enough that he caught it on the way out of his mouth. 

Two years, over. Not gone, never gone, but a snipped thread.

"I..." Taeyong sucks on his bottom lip, unsure. "I have something for you, if you won't hate me for it."

Ten looks at him warily across the table. "It's not my stuff, is it?" he asks, small. "Please tell me you didn't pack up all my stuff already."

Taeyong's heart is held together very simply, with the bandaid of knowing they're both going to be better for this. "Oh, baby, no." He swallows. "I don't...I don't know if I could have done that so quickly." It hurts. There's so much of Ten everywhere, of Taeyong's Very Important Person, in the floorboards and the drywall of Taeyong's shitty apartment. "This is just...I bought it for you, a while ago." He picks up the package. With shaky hands, he puts it on the table. The wrapping paper is garish, but he did it in April, and now it's December, and everything has fallen apart so slowly it's like they've both been sleeping.

Dead in the winter, the both of them, but there's still something warm between them, because some things never die.

Ten takes the package, touches the tears and traces his fingers over the pretty bow. "I..." He holds it to his chest and makes a rough, dramatic noise. "This is lame. I won't hate you for it. I just wish things were different." He looks out the window again. The sky is dark now. It's so early for the sun to go down. "I...I need to leave, actually. I have rehearsals in an hour." The cold made them both so brittle.

"Go," Taeyong says, not unkindly. "Take it with you. Open it if you want."

"Okay." Ten looks at it uncertainly, and Taeyong wonders if it will ever be opened at all. He supposes it doesn't matter. It's Ten's, so it's up to Ten what happens to it. It's a hard pill to swallow.

Ten, who was his best friend once. Taeyong hopes they can be again, but even if this is an easy decision, mutual and balanced, things still hurt, and only time can tell.

Slowly, Ten stands up from his seat and shrugs on his coat. He digs his glasses out from his pocket and perches them on his nose, a small attempt to hide the growing red of his eyes. The package is tucked under his arm. He runs a hand through his hair. He looks good.

Taeyong already misses him.

Quietly, Ten reaches up, and Taeyong follows to movement towards the mistletoe hanging over the table, just beside. Ten pulls it over Taeyong with a smile that might have been wicked if it weren't so heavy. "Merry Christmas, Taeyong."

Ten kisses Taeyong, so sweetly, on the crease of Taeyong's forehead, and lets the mistletoe slips through his fingers.

Taeyong cries, then, or realizes he's crying. He wipes his eyes and smiles, as bright and warm and brilliant as he can. "Merry Christmas, Ten."

Watching him go never gets any easier.

The bell rings as Ten leaves the café, and the thud of the door shutting matches the sound Taeyong's head makes as he slams it on the table.

It gets dark so fast, in the winter. The lights outside are ugly neon, and the snow has started falling gently down between everything. Taeyong doesn't want to leave the warmth of the indoors, his feet stuck to the ground. The hot chocolate is slightly too cold. He takes a long sip anyway.

Someone knocks on the table, raps knuckles on wood, and Taeyong jerks upright to quickly his head spins.

The barista is there, and kind enough not to mention that Taeyong is still crying. He has a piece of cake in his hands. He sets it down on the table. "Something sweet," he says, too awkward to smile but the gesture is so kind. "You were right, you look like you need it."

Taeyong laughs, despite himself, tucking his hair out of his face. Deep breath, slump down, wipe eyes, feel human. The checklist doesn't do much for him, and he's not particularly hungry, but he pulls the plate close. "Thank you," he says, small.

The man eyes the swinging of the mistletoe above, over the other table and then over Taeyong is a slowing rhythm. "I hope..." He takes a deep breath. There's chocolate and whipped cream on his apron, and he smoothes down the fabric with his hands, smearing flour. "I hope you have a good holiday."

"I'll try," Taeyong says, biting down on the tines of the fork and watching the snow fall, sugar on the pavement. "Heartbreak is a good gift, anyway. It builds character."

"Character building is a terrible Christmas gift," the barista tells him. "Should have saved it for the New Year."

Taeyong laughs and takes another drink of hot chocolate. "I'll keep that in mind for next time I have to break someone's heart."

He isn't hungry, but he eats the entire thing, and the hot chocolate is too cold to finish, but he leaves a large enough tip to cover his dessert, and by the time he steps out onto the pavement it's still cold and dark but Taeyong feels less brittle.

"Merry Christmas," he tells the open air, pollution and pine and cinnamon sweet.

**Author's Note:**

> WE MADE IT  
> like I said I did have plans for all members so if you're interested in this universe, including ships or what they do for a living or who different cameos are, [hmu](https://twitter.com/fuIImarks)


End file.
